Fort Worth Has Turned Into A Desert Hotter & Less Humid Than Phoenix

The above was taken from my computer based temperature monitoring device a few minutes before 6 on this HOT sunny Sunday afternoon in Texas.

As you can see, and, if you are in Texas, feel, it is HOT. And going to get HOTTER.

As in, on Wednesday, it appears we are going to be sizzling.

One benefit of all this HEAT is it has burned off much of the humidity. Currently the humidity is only 18%.

In Phoenix, at this moment, the humidity is 27%, with the temperature chillier than Fort Worth, at 102 degrees. With the humidity in Fort Worth being lower than Phoenix, does this mean we are now experiencing a desert climate on this part of the planet?

Will Saguaro Cactus soon be arriving? I hope so. I really like Saguaro Cactus.

A Sunday Walk With The Indian Ghosts Who Haunt The Village Creek Natural Historical Area

The Village Creek Blue Bayou

I realized this morning I may have been overdoing the mountain biking at Gateway Park.

This realization came to me when I realized how frequently I've pedaled the Gateway Park trails in the past couple weeks, at ever increasing velocity and ride length.

And that this behavior must be what has caused me to have some aching muscles in the mid-section / lower back zone.

So, until the pain abates, no mountain bike trails for me.

With mountain biking currently being a no-no, I decided to go to Arlington, to the Village Creek Natural Historical Area to walk with my Indian Ghost friends who I've been neglecting lately.

With the temperature being above 90 there was not a big crowd of fellow ghost walkers today.

More people need to discover how pleasant it is to walk under the shade of the Village Creek trees when one might think the temperature was too HOT to possibly be pleasant.

Very little water is flowing through Village Creek, making for some very stagnant, scummy ponds. The Village Creek Blue Bayou is choking on foliage, with the water a little less scummy than what remains in Village Creek.

Seeing all that stagnant water made me wonder what the plan is to keep the water in the Trinity River Vision Boondoggle's Granger Pond and the canals, if the canals are still part of the myopic vision, from being stagnant.

Dodging Disc Golfers While Finding My Way On Gateway Park's FWMBA Trail

I was pedaling fast on the Gateway Park mountain bike trail, not quite sure which way to go, when I came upon the very conveniently placed FWMBA TRAIL sign you see in the picture, with an easy to follow arrow pointing the way.

It was not yet heated to 100 degrees in the outer world when I left air-conditioned comfort today to go get me some endorphin therapy via excessive aerobic stimulation.

I only saw a couple other bikers today. I saw way more than a couple disc golfers. The disc golf trail and the mountain bike trail share trail in a couple locations. Disc golfers are sort of loud as they shout at each other whilst looking for their lost discs.

I saw one of the disc golfers had an interesting personalized license plate.

DISGOLF.

That seemed to me to be a bit of an unfortunate personalized license plate if your intention was to indicate your fondness for the disc golf sport.

FWMBA is not a word. I tried to pronounce FWMBA as a word and gave up. I believe FWMBA is shorthand for Fort Worth Mountain Bike Association.

Dallas has DORBA, while Fort Worth has FWMBA. The reason DORBA is not DMBA is because DORBA is shorthand for Dallas Off Road Bicycle Association.

Does Seattle have a SORBA or SMBA? If so, I've never heard of it.

I think I probably should take a day off of the excessive exercising, even if it makes me feel good. I was in the pool for over an hour this morning. And I did two loops around the FWMBA trail.

I am ever so slightly sore, but I think that may be from packing, into my abode, all the stuff I got at Town Talk today. I need to cease, for awhile, buying frozen things at Town Talk. My freezer is just about filled to capacity.

The outer world was not yet heated to 100 when I went biking in the noon time frame. Now, at almost 4 in the afternoon, we have passed the 100 degree mark, yet again, heading to a predicted high of 104, before today's heating part of the day comes to an end.

We are heading into a period of predicted day after day after day over 100.

Why Did Downtown Fort Worth Not Open A CityTarget On Wednesday?

In the picture you are looking at something called "CityTarget". This is an urban concept Target store.

This new Target store concept opened in three locations this past Wednesday, those being Los Angeles, Chicago and Fort Worth.

I'm sorry, I typed Fort Worth when I should have typed Seattle.

That is the Seattle CityTarget in the picture. It is located one block from Pike Place Market. Pike Place Market is a market that is like the Dallas Farmers Market on steroids.

Nothing like the Dallas Farmers Market, let alone the Dallas Farmers Market on steroids, exists in Fort Worth. Years ago, in a civic delusion that preceded Fort Worth's Trinity River Vision Boondoggle civic delusion, the powers-that-be in Fort Worth, powers like the town's sad excuse for a newspaper of record, the Star-Telegram, trumpeted a lame failure called the Santa Fe Rail Market as being modeled after Seattle's Pike Place Market.

The misrepresentations, made by the local powers-that-be, in regards to the Santa Fe Rail Market, are very instructive, what with the same type deluded nonsense being foisted on the public in regards to the TRV Boondoggle.

For example, this morning the Star-Telegraph, (please note I typed Telegraph, not Telegram) pointed me towards an absurdest editorial in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram titled Funding for Fort Worth bridges and bikes good for the future.

The Star-Telegraph blogged about this twisted Star-Telegram editorial in a blogging titled They don't read. That blogging reprinted a very good comment to the Star-Telegram's editorial from someone calling himself gmsherry1953. You can read that comment on the Star-Telegraph's  They don't read blogging.

The fact that downtown Seattle has opened yet one more department store, in addition to all the department stores, grocery stores and vertical malls that already exist in downtown Seattle, with the first floor of the new CityTarget being a grocery store, a type store downtown Fort Worth lacks, except for something called Oliver's Fine Foods, a place which only a very imaginative person would call a real grocery store, has me thinking that it would behoove the powers-that-be in Fort Worth to devote some think time to the reasons why downtown Fort Worth lacks a single department store, grocery store, vertical mall and many of the other amenities one associates with a big town's downtown.

Yes, I know someone is going to say the reason why downtown Fort Worth lacks stores and is the deadest downtown of all the big towns in America, on the biggest shopping day of the year, that being the day after Thanksgiving, is because few people reside in downtown Fort Worth.

So, it would seem the question to be asked is why not enough people live in downtown Fort Worth to cause the normal development one sees in a big town's downtown?

The bizarre Trinity River Vision Boondoggle is partly touted as being the solution to bringing downtown Fort Worth out of its current doldrums, causing people to want to live in what's called the Trinity Uptown zone. An area, supposedly, where condos, apartments and other living quarters will be built. Along with other big town amenities, in addition to a tourist attraction the likes of San Antonio's River Walk. Only bigger.

Did I mention already the tendency of Fort Worth's powers-that-be to come up with exaggerated delusional plans that end up being big boondoggles?

Yeah, it seems really likely that the Trinity River Vision Boondoggle is going to out-do San Antonio's River Walk.

Just like the Cowtown Wakepark became the world's premiere urban wakeboarding destination.

In the graphic you are looking at the the population increase in downtown Seattle's various downtown areas from 1990 to 2010. Downtown Seattle, as a whole, grew 72%, outgrowing all of Seattle's neighborhoods outside of downtown.

Instead of coming up with pathetic boondoggles in the hope that the boondoggle will somehow cause Fort Worth's downtown to magically become like other big towns, Fort Worth's powers-that-be should look at towns like Seattle and make note of what it is that has caused those other town's Downtowns to become Boomtowns.

Seattle's Downtown became a Boomtown not as the result of a bizarre nepotistic plot using the abuse of eminent domain, with massive influxes of federal dollars to build bridges to nowhere, over giant, un-needed flood channels, with a little pond, and maybe some stagnant canals, to employ a Seattle congresswoman's unemployed son with a job for which he had zero qualifications.

Seattle's Downtown and other town's Downtowns become Boomtowns due to the organic, natural attributes and legitimate efforts of the people who live in the towns, not due to pathetic public works projects that the public is not allowed to vote on.

I'm done now. For now.

Gateway Park Mountain Bike Trail Sign Keeps Me From Flying Over Cliff In To The Trinity River

In the picture you are deep in the heart of the Gateway Park jungle, on a mountain bike trail.

That sign tacked to a tree trunk says "TRAIL" with a useful arrow pointing the way.

Without that "TRAIL" sign one might not make the turn and instead continue straight ahead, which in about 15 feet would have you flying over a cliff and falling about 40 feet to the raging waters of the Trinity River.

Til today I'd missed two days in a row of getting my daily salubrious endorphin inducing aerobic stimulation.

Currently the mountain bike trails, along with the paved trails, at Gateway Park, is my favorite place to pedal. Gateway Park is about 4 miles west of my abode, which makes it very convenient.

I am a bit appalled that these trails have long been in existence with me ignorant of their usefulness. It's like all the years I was unaware that I had hills to hike so close to where I live, known as the Tandy Hills.

In my wanton ignorance I used to frequently drive long distances to bike and hike.

Like 25 miles to Cedar Hills State Park in south Dallas to both bike and hike.

Or north to the hiking and biking trails at various parks on Lake Grapevine.

Many a time I've driven 150 miles roundtrip to bike or hike at Dinosaur Valley State Park.

Or east 120 miles to Tyler State Park to mountain bike.

And many other locations, not so far and way too far, like Waco, to find mountain bike trails at Cameron Park on the Brazos River.

And now, I find myself having most of my hiking and biking needs met by locations 4 miles (or less) distant from my living quarters.

Betty Jo Bouvier Is Being Eaten Alive By Sedro-Woolley Mosquito Bugs

I saw on Facebook that Betty Jo Bouvier is suffering from severe mosquito attacks.

Betty Jo Bouvier lives in Sedro-Woolley, Washington.

Before Woolley was added to Sedro, Sedro was a solo town.

Around 1885 Mortimer Cook moved his family from Santa Barbara, California to a new home and store that was waiting for them in Washington's Skagit Valley. Soon, Cook let it be known he was going to name his new town "Bug," due to the swarms of mosquitoes.

However, Cook's wife, and other local wives, the Betty Jo Bouviers of their day, protested the idea of naming their new town "Bug." So, Cook decided to name his new town after a type of tree that grew in the Skagit Valley,  using the Spanish word for cedar, which is cedro, and then making the name a little different by changing the 'c' to 's'.

A few years later, in 1889, a railroad builder named Phillip A. Woolley moved to the Sedro zone and built Skagit River Timber & Shingle, starting a company town, named after himself. A couple other towns developed in the Sedro zone. And then, on December 19, 1898 the towns all merged together and became Sedro-Woolley.

I do not know why, more than a century later, the town, which should have been named Bug, still does not have its mosquito population under control.

I think I have mentioned previously that when I lived in the Skagit Valley of Washington not a summer went by where I did not get multiple mosquito bites.

I have no clue why, in bug-infested Texas, I have not once been mosquito bitten, in all my years of exile in this hot humid zone where Texans have succumbed to the mosquito delivered West Nile Virus.

Maybe it is the copious amounts of raw garlic I consume in Texas which thwarts the skeeter bites. I did not consume copious amounts of raw garlic when I lived in Washington. Betty Jo Bouvier may want to amp up her raw garlic consumption to see if that thwarts the swarms of mosquitoes laying waste to her delicate epidermal layer.

It's worth a try.

In Alaska Rosie The Rat Dog Finds Humpbacks, Orcas, Otters & New Words

An Otter On Ice In The Gulf Of Alaska

The latest update of Rosie the Rat Dog's Alaska! Blog has the best scenery yet.

In a blogging inexplicably titled Tails, Fins and Eyes you take a boat ride out into the Gulf of Alaska where you'll see giant glaciers, humpback whales, sea lions, orcas and otters, among other things.

The nicknames of the humans who Rosie the Rat Dog looks after are Otter and Penguin, hence the Internet handle of otterpengu.

I've never had explained to me the reason for the Otter/Penguin nicknames, but I can guess that it might have something to do with a resemblance to those cute critters.

I am enjoying the written commentary on the Alaska! Blog. It is written in a very purple prose style, like what a pioneer woman might write whilst crossing America on the Oregon Trail back in the 1860s.

I particularly enjoy the imaginative spelling and new word inventions. I think my favorite new word may be "fastination."

I am not certain, but I think "fastination" means being fascinated by scenery one sees when traveling at a high rate of speed.  I may be wrong about this.

Will The Non-Stop Commenting Of Bob Costas Ruin Friday's London 2012 Olympics Opening Ceremony?

The London 2012 Summer Olympics opens this coming Friday. That is something like two days from now.

This morning I was reminded, by a blog comment, of a blogging I wrote way back on April 22, 2008, titled Boycotting the Beijing Olympics.

That above mentioned blog comment...

Michael Robinson has left a new comment on your post "Boycotting the Beijing Olympics": 

Thank you. Now I have something to link when someone asks me why I don't watch the Olympics. I looked forward to the 2008 opening ceremonies for years and this guy ruined it. 

I had a pretty good idea what had me in boycott mode over 4 years ago, even before I re-read what I wrote.

Bob Costas.

I was boycotting Bob Costas and his non-stop yammering that had me turn off the Athens Olympics Opening Ceremony.

Below is part of what I had to say on April 22, 2008....

I only made it through a couple hours of the Athens Olympics opening ceremonies. I like watching all the pomp and ceremony and trying to hear the music. But Bob Costas would not shut up. It was so distracting. If someone had been in my house watching TV with me and they yapped on and on like Bob Costas I would issue an ultimatum, either shut up or get out of my house.

When I wrote about Boycotting the Beijing Olympics I said when I lived in Washington, near the Canadian border, I could watch Canadian coverage of something like an Olympics and see way fewer commercials and hear no Bob Costas boobery.

On April 22 of 2008 I did not know that by the time of the Beijing Olympics Opening Ceremony I would be in Tacoma and thus able to watch the Olympics Bob Costas-free on Canadian TV.

Til you get to watch such a thing without a babbling boob like Bob Costas you can't possibly realize how much better this makes the viewing experience.

It has long been a mystery to me why the non-stop yammering is deemed appropriate, let alone necessary.

I wonder if I can get Mexican TV here in North Texas? Even if the Mexican TV coverage had their version of a Bob Costas boob doing non-stop commentary, at least it would be in Spanish and thus not distracting because I would not understand what was being said.

I suppose I will try and watch the London Opening Ceremonies on Friday, eternal optimist that I am, hoping that NBC has figured out they need to muzzle Bob Costas.

The New Zorro's Buffet In Hurst Hits 100% On The Dud Meter

I do not think I've been to Zorro's Buffet since Thanksgiving of 2008.

Zorro's Buffet on Thanksgiving in 2008 did not make for a good Thanksgiving. No carved turkey, with all the fixin's. Among other shortcomings.

When Zorro's Buffet first opened I opined enthusiastically about it, because I thought it was good, on a par with buffets I've been a pig at in Las Vegas and Reno and elsewhere.

Subsequent visits were on a par with the first, til that Thanksgiving turkey debacle ended my visits to Zorro's Buffet.

Til today.

A short while ago a new Zorro's Buffet opened close to where I live, in Hurst, in the Northeast Mall complex.

Today was fellow former Pacific Northwesterner, Big Ed's, 39th birthday, give or take a year or two. I asked Big Ed if he wanted to go to the new Zorro's Buffet for his birthday. The answer was in the affirmative.

I'd not been to any sort of buffet type deal since I was in Arizona and we went to the Sweet Tomatoes in Ahwatukee. That was a really good buffet experience.

The buffet experience, today, at the new Zorro's Buffet in Hurst, was not a good buffet experience.

The new restaurant looks nice, big and open. Clean. Cool looking cement floor. Several buffet stations.

The first problem is the Zorro's Buffet plate has been shrunk to dessert plate size. A BBQ beef rib overwhelmed the plate.

Another problem was the food was not tasty. For instance, the aforementioned BBQ beef rib did not taste even remotely BBQed.

The only protein that tasted good was a grilled fish of some unknown variety. There was fried, grilled and roasted chicken, none of which seemed to be seasoned or tasty.

There were no fresh yeast rolls like I'd learned to like at the original Zorro's.

The prepared salads were blah.

There were slabs of some sort of steak product covered with what might have been intended to be BBQ sauce, but which was pretty much just a slab of tasteless, tough leather.

Blindfolded I would not have guessed what the chile rellenos were. All I tasted was egg.

The chicken flautas were like hard, flavorless cigars. The chicken enchiladas were like the hard, flavorless chicken flautas, only with a sauce poured on top.

The original Zorro's did dessert well. Simple, with few selections, all of which seemed fresh and made on the premises.

The desserts at the Hurst Zorro's were not fresh, did not seem as if they could possibly have been made on the premises, all had that previously frozen, mass-produced look. Like the awful cherry cobbler with little evidence of cherries and a crust that might be a new construction product. The peach pie was not peachy.

And the ice cream. At the original Zorro's you could scoop up the ice cream yourself and put it on the cobbler. At the Hurst Zorro's an employee scoops the ice cream for you. A golf ball size scoop.

I don't know what has happened with Zorro's Buffet. Did the original owner sell out? I think the cost cutting measures and the quality reduction portend for a very short life for Zorro's Buffet in Hurst.

Too bad.

The original Zorro's Buffet was really good. Originally.

Don't Mess With Texas Because If You Kill Someone We Will Kill You Back

Late last night, Elsie Hotpepper sent me the picture of the above sign that she came upon during one of her extensive travels across Texas.

Prior to reading it on this sign, I knew that it was unwise to mess with TEXAS.

I also knew that many Texas citizens carried concealed weapons.

I also knew there was an eye for an eye Texas tendency, where if you kill someone, without a good reason, you'll likely also be killed. Sometimes by the state, sometimes by a self-justified angry Texan.

I actually did not know that Texans enjoy their gunfights because gunfights are a Texas tradition. Though this new information does not surprise me.

I also did not know that there are 120 prisons in Texas. That is a lot of prisons.